Childline.

I grew up in the Okanagan. Born and raised as a child. Beautiful BC. With beaches and family.
We lived near the downtown core but on a newly developed road. My paternal grandma and grandpa lived two blocks away. I loved to ride my bike down to their house and spend time with my grandma. I remember chatting and making beds up for her kids that were still at home. I am the oldest of all the grandchildren on both sides and my parents are both oldest children. My uncle was ten when I was born. I named my daughter for her, Cecilia. 
My maternal grandparents lived up the hill on the other side of the lake and we spent a fair amount of time there too. My grandma was raising my cousins and therefore we all were the best of friends. They lived next to a bible camp and we had free rang out there and around the property. There was a toboggan hill out back of the camp in the winter and at Christmas, us cousins would trek out across the camp and up the toboggan hill. In the summer, fall, and spring, we climbed trees and played in a small playhouse that my grandpa had built. I remember that us cousins had gone out on the hill, a road beside the driveway that ran the length of the property and the farm below, and took each for ourselves a little red and white tricycle. We took off down the hill and those trikes would go so fast that our feet would fly off. We had to turn down the road by the farm or else we were destined for the main road. We had so much fun. At dinner when we held hands and my grandpa said prayers over dinner, my cousin and I would be holding in giggles and we had our own little code for when we wanted to convince my mother to let me stay the night.
The bible camp was affiliated with a church in town and my mother took us there as her duty until I was six. At that point her second cousin started a church on our side of the lake and we went there instead. At this church I felt joy. I knew God for real at six. He was always there and always with me, to this day. At that point I remember that my mom took me everywhere with her . To church at night, to baby showers, to bible study. I loved to tag along and sit with the adults. I rarely wanted to stay home. My kids are the same way.
There were some problems at home around this same time. I had nightmares regularly and was shy. I had my best friend next door and a few down the street. I cherished my few good friends. We rode bikes all over, my favorite thing to do. I am still in touch with that best and she recently had her first babe.
I remember my parents fighting some and something that sticks out in my mind is one time at the dinner table when my two brothers were telling my dad that they hated him. I didn't like that one bit and decided that I was going to be on his side. I was. I prayed for him to know God like I did, everyday for years. He met Him later on when I was a teenager.
When I was almost finished elementary school, my dad was laid off from a mine that had closed. We moved at that point. I found my place very quickly in that small town. And I had decided that being a Christian was a very serious thing. My few good friends that I found knew Him too. I think that move saved me in many ways. I was always glad to be in that place when I heard of my old friends being into drugs. He brought us there. In that place is where my childhood ended and the teenage years began. And so ends the part of my timeline from when I was a child.